The Rebirth of IQHAWE is a short experimental dance film, exploring the potential to hybridize Sibeko’s Butoh-inspired performance practice into the film form: fragmenting, collaging and refiguring the body in time and space as a means to capture the corporeal expression of the movement. While by the modern Japanese movement practice of Butoh explores the connection of the body to mind and soul; the film attempts to channel the kinaesthetic energy of the body through the lens, the cut and the screen’s ability to bend time and space. The film was a direct response to Reeds of IQHAWE, Sibeko’s performance art and photographic series, exploring the body and its capacity for the sacred and the socio-political. By drawing on his seSotho ancestry and the Butoh movement practice, IQHAWE investigates the possibility of ceremonial and aesthetic fusion. Rebirth of IQHAWE premiered as part of an installation at the Wits Art Museum in 2017 and has been screened at film festivals around the globe, including the International Video Art House Festival in Madrid; Instants Vidéo Numériques et poétiques in Marseille; and the 6th International Meeting on Videodance and Videoperformance.
Concept by Nicola Pilkington and Oupa Sibeko
Performed by Oupa Sibeko
Videography and Edit by Nicola Pilkington
Score by Geoffrey Diver